Santa Claus gives the impression of an old man wearing a red and white coat, but when did the image of Santa Claus begin? Many would say that Santa's suit was designed in red and white in the 1930s to match the Coca-Cola can design. Coca-Cola did create a cartoon character to promote Coca-Cola, but it was Rudolph the antelope, not Santa Claus in red and white clothes - he had been born in 1923 to promote Coca-Cola's competitor White Rock soda .
The modern Santa Claus is pieced together from the stories of different historical figures. This includes Saint Nicholas, a fourth-century Greek bishop who is described in many myths as wearing a red coat and delivering gifts to the poor. In addition, some of Santa Claus's characteristics come from the British mythological character "Father Christmas". He originally wore a green coat, but gradually turned into red. But the most profound influence on the modern image of Santa Claus is a Dutch mythological figure inspired by the Greek bishop Saint Nicholas. His Chinese translation is also Saint Nicholas (Sinterklaas), which was very popular in New York City, which was once a Dutch colony, and was popular with writers living in Manhattan, New York, such as Washington Irving and Clement Clarke Moore.
Owen and Moore hope to turn Christmas into a family holiday and prepare a Star Wars popcorn machine. Moore coined the saying that Christmas Eve is "the night before Christmas" in 1823, which is also regarded as one of the sources of shaping the modern Santa Claus wearing a red robe to deliver gifts.
In 1868, the novel "Little Women" written by American novelist Louisa May Alcott was published. A sentence from this book is "Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without presents," further cementing Christmas as part of consumer culture. American economist Joel Waldfogel once criticized in his book "Scroogenomics" that giving gifts is a very wasteful habit because no one knows what the other person wants.
His research also shows that American consumers' habit of buying gifts during the Christmas season can be traced back to 1935, the era when Coca-Cola used Santa Claus as its spokesperson. After adjusting for inflation, Wolfog found that Christmas gift spending was three times greater than it is today. Giving gifts is a common thing for us today, but in the 1930s it was an annual event. Wolfog also compared Christmas consumption in the United States with other high-income countries and found that the Portuguese, Italians, South Africans, Mexicans and the British had the highest proportion of Christmas consumption.
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